12 OCTOBER 1889, Page 22

A Romance of the Recusants. By the Author of "The

Life of a Prig." (Kogan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—One is almost glad to learn that this new work by the author of that curious book, "The Life of a Prig," is neither original nor historical, and that almost all its incidents, as well as all its characters, have been suggested by a perusal of "The Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus." It is not a very pleasant book, nor is it quite the book that one would expect from such a writer. Here and there, we get a touch of that sarcasm with which we have been in the habit of associating him, as in the last chapter, in which it is said of the family of Murless, each male member of which is "a good land- lord, a good friend, a good father, a good son, a good husband, and a good sportsman," that "they are utterly ignorant of that most important science without which no one can get on in these days, commonly known as advertising Oneself." But the story of the " harbouring " of a Roman Catholic priest, Everard Gordon, by Walter Murless and Clare Sherrington, which ends in the execution or martyrdom of Gordon, is so melancholy in itself—and in spite of love, magnanimity, and con- scientiousness—that there is but little room for satire, much less for fun. A Romance of the Recusants is carefully written, and so far as fidelity to history is concerned, is all that need be desired. Sometimes, too, its author seems to throw off the draperies of the period which he seeks to reproduce, and to speak in modern style of almost modern things. But, on the whole, his experiment cannot be accounted a very great success. He is at his best in a chastened squib.